Postdoctoral Position in the Area of Medical Sensors and Immunomonitoring

Do you want to contribute to top quality medical research?

We are seeking a highly skilled and motivated post-doctoral research fellow in the field of medical sensors and immunology to join an interdisciplinary project in translational medical research at Karolinska Institutet. This is an exciting opportunity to involve breakthrough research on developing microsampling device for medical diagnostics as part of the recently awarded Karolinska Institutet Research Incubator (KIRI) Project, using a combination of chemistry, microfabrication, and biology.

Applications are invited for a co-supervised post-doctoral position in Parlak Lab at the Division of Dermatology and Venereology, Department of Medicine, Solna and Brodin Lab at the Division of Clinical Pediatrics,Department of Women´s and Children´s Health.

Parlak Lab and Brodin Lab focus on developing novel medical diagnostic methods and studies of immune system variation and development, respectively. The groups are building new interdisciplinary research as there is an immense potential for new fundamental insights to be discovered.

Your mission

A highly motivated, skilled, and experienced post-doctoral research fellow in medical sensors and immunomonitoring is needed to work in coordination with Parlak and Brodin Labs in recently funded KIRI project. You will be part of a research team in Parlak and Brodin Labs developing high-quality biosensors and study immune system variation, respectively.

Specifically, you will work on the fabrication of epidermal microsampling device, synthetic and semi-synthetic biorecognition design for immunomonitoring. You will be integral members of both teams which work to generate high-quality biomedical devices in a high throughput format.

The work includes the fabrication of microsampling array, biorecognition design, and electrochemical assay analysis. The duties of the position also include reporting and data dissemination. Thus, your work will contribute to the broader goal of the project; to enable rapid, accurate, and safe sampling, allowing clinicians to improve treatment decisions for the benefit of patients.

This project is a collaboration between different departments at Karolinska Institutet. Our vision is to enable rapid, accurate, and safe sampling strategies, allowing clinicians to improve treatment decisions for the benefit of patients. The project will illustrate the ground-breaking nature in line with its core principles. Firstly, on a fundamental level, the microsampling design and in-situ stabilization will provide further insight into the principles of epidermal immunomonitoring devices on a scale where they have not been studied before. In contrast to traditional approaches, this project will adopt a multidisciplinary method to overcome existing problems. Overall, the results from the project will be a model platform and pave the way for monitoring systems and medical diagnostics.

Your profile

We are looking for a highly motivated, driven, inquisitive and enthusiastic person interested in our area of research and ready to explore new avenues in science. The candidates should have a collaborative approach to research, work productively in a team, and contribute to a good social environment in the laboratory.

The applicant shall hold a Ph.D. degree in life science, natural science or engineering sciences. The candidates with previous experience in medical diagnostics and microfabrication will be prioritized. The candidate should have documented experience with medical sensors or biosensors. Experience in immunology, and biorecognition design and experience in microfabrication is significant merit. Experience with cell culturing and microscopy is not required but is considered merit.

The applicant needs to have a high degree of independence and motivation but should have no problems working in a team, given the collaborative nature of the project.

Fluency in English is a requirement.

To be eligible for employment as a postdoctor a doctoral degree or a foreign degree deemed to be equivalent to a doctoral degree is required. This eligibility requirement must be fulfilled at the latest at the time of the employment decision. It is considered as an advantage if you have completed your doctoral degree within the last three years, if there are special reasons, your degree may have been completed earlier.

What do we offer?

A creative and inspiring environment with wide-ranging expertise and interests. Karolinska Institutet is one of the world’s leading medical universities. At Karolinska Institutet, we conduct successful medical research and hold the largest range of medical education in Sweden. At KI, you get to meet researchers working with a wide range of specialisms and methods, giving you ample opportunity to exchange knowledge and experience with the various scientific fields within medicine and health. It is the crossover collaborations, which have pushed KI to where it is today, at the forefront of global research. Several of the people you meet in healthcare are educated at KI. A close relationship with the health care providers is important for creating groundbreaking top quality education and research. Karolinska Institutet is also a state university, which entitles you to several benefits through our collective agreement.

Location

The position is located within the Department of Medicine, Solna. The department consists of twelve divisions and each division consists of several research groups. The position is located within the research group  Onur Parlak and Petter Brodin.

Parlak Lab is a newly established laboratory in the Dermatology Division that aims to use innovative science at the interface between biotechnology, materials science, and electronics to tackle the key area of critical importance to society: healthcare and biomaterials. Parlak Lab investigates the application of bioelectronics in medicine to meet the need for complex, dynamic environments and to develop novel devices. The overall aim of the lab is to develop new technologies to combat healthcare challenges and design novel tools for early diagnostics and solutions for digital medicine and remote monitoring.

Brodin Lab is located in the Division of Clinical Pediatrics, and aims to understand human immune system variation in health and disease, and understand the factors that shape human immune systems. The lab´s main interest is to define better metrics of immune system health and develop methods for better immune system analyses in human patients. To analyze human immune systems at the systems-level, novel experimental and computational methods are developed.

Both labs have excellent facilities for research, advanced tools, and analysis opportunities that the postdoctoral student will be able to use to the extent that he/she needs for the project. As a part of the project, the student will be able to use different local core facilities at Karolinska Institutet, such as the Biomedicum Imaging Core (BIC) Facility and Protein Science Facility for microscopy and structural analysis and Biofabrication and Tissue Engineering Facility (BioFab) for device fabrication as well as the SciLifeLab Cellular immunomonitoring facility led by the Brodin lab.

In addition to general tools and facilities that are available and conveniently located on the campus, both supervisors´ teams and the division, in general, offer various opportunities for preclinical and clinical research conducted side-by-side together with medical specialists and technologists. With this, the student will have a chance to contribute to a great extent to the research performed at the division. There will be plenty of opportunities for stimulating the educational environment within many different research topics conducted in parallel in the department and the division

Application

An employment application must contain the following documents in English or Swedish:

• A complete curriculum vitae, including date of the PhD defense, title of the thesis, previous academic positions, academic title, current position, academic distinctions, and committee work (not more than 5 pages)
• A selected list of publications
• A personal letter highlighting previous scientific accomplishments, technical expertise and why the candidate is interested in joining the host lab (not more than one page)
• Two Reference letters (to be uploaded in Varbi if already available, or to be sent directly to onur.parlak@ki.se after the first selection round)

The application is to be submitted through the Varbi recruitment system.

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